


Bereavement

by NPennyworth



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, During Canon, Game Spoilers, Gen, Light Angst, Minor Asgore Dreemurr/Toriel, Short One Shot, Video Game Mechanics, but only at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 15:38:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13034235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NPennyworth/pseuds/NPennyworth
Summary: Asgore Dreemurr is king, and a king must do what is necessary to save his people. Even if it means killing children.





	Bereavement

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 2 of Asgore Weekend, during game events. The title is from a track off the extended Undertale OST.  
> As always, feedback is appreciated!

_ The first one will be the hardest.  _ This is what Asgore tells himself, staring into the eyes of a child. He never expected one to fall so soon, but here they are.

“So, you’re the king,” the child says, and Asgore watches the child step closer. “Everybody told me to stay away; they said that you were going to kill me. But I don’t think that’s true.”

“Oh, child,” Asgore says, noticing how he towers over the small human, with their light blue striped shirt and red bow in their hair.  _ So young.  _ His paws shake as he lifts his trident. “You should have listened.”

It only takes one swing of his trident. The child jerks and goes still, their eyes closing and their body slumping. A thin trail of blood dribbles out of their mouth as they crumple to the ground.

Asgore picks up the too small body and his vision blurs. Their soul is strong, but not strong enough. He will need to do this again, six more times.

He stands, still holding the body, heedless of the red blood staining his paws. That day King Asgore orders for coffins to be built, one for each child he’ll kill.

* * *

The second child puts up more of a fight. It is a bit of a surprise, as the first one had fallen so easily. Asgore is stronger though, so much stronger. When he stands over another limp body it does not feel any easier than the first.

After the child is put in a coffin, next to the first child and Chara’s empty coffin, Asgore finds himself in his room, staring at his journal. He has not written in it for a while.

Asgore forces himself to pick up the pen, and it hovers over the page. What would he write?  _ Today I killed another child. I still need to kill five more. _

When his hand finally moves, it writes  _ it’s a beautiful day outside.  _ Asgore stares at the sentence for a second, repeating it in his mind. Maybe if he remembers that he will remember his goal, to free his subjects. He can only barely remember seeing the sun; younger monsters would have no memory of the surface.

“It’s a beautiful day outside,” he whispers to himself. “This is for them.”

* * *

“Is it true that you killed them?” the child asks, their eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “The other children that fell down. Did you kill all of them? Will you kill me?”

“I’m sorry,” is all that Asgore can say, lifting up his trident for the final blow.

“But why?” asks the child, innocent horror in their voice. “Can’t you just let us go?”

“I am king,” Asgore tells the child. “I want so much to let you go. But as king, I need to protect my people.”

The trident comes down and Asgore feels a strange disconnect with the motion, as if he’s watching himself from a distance. Only when the child jerks and goes limp does he slam back into himself, and then he is standing in front of another dead child.

Alphys finds him much later, still kneeling over the body as the soul hovers in the air beside him.

“They’re so young,” he says, and Alphys says nothing, only putting her hand on his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “We all know the sacrifice that you’re making. If there was any other way…” Asgore is silent, knowing that there is no other way. There is nothing any of them can do but

_ It’s a beautiful day outside,  _ Asgore reminds himself as he buries the third child, and the words feel grey in his mind.

* * *

Upon Undyne’s suggestion the royal guards had been mobilized to capture and kill humans. Asgore isn’t sure why he hadn’t come up with this before. There is, after all, no reason for him to be the only one to collect the souls.

He’s very proud of Undyne. She’s told him about how she wants to be the Captain of the Royal Guard when she’s older, and he thinks that already she’s better than a good number of his guards. Training Undyne has been a welcome distraction, something to keep his hands busy and mind fixed on something other than tiny coffins lined up in the basement.

When he heard the footsteps he expected Undyne to appear in the doorway to the throne room, not the small child with glasses and a purple shirt. The child appeared to be panting heavily, and glared at Asgore.

“Are you such a coward that you wouldn’t bother to come after me by yourself?” the child asked, and Asgore set down the watering can he had been using on the garden and pulled out his trident.

“Perhaps,” he said. “You got past all the guards.”

“Yeah,” said the child. “I don’t give up.”

After the child is dead Asgore thinks that the child is right, but not for the reason he mentioned. Once the body is safely interred in a coffin he summons the royal guard again and changes their orders to capture the humans, to not kill them unless if the human threatens them.

His word may not be heeded in this case; monsters are already starting to forget what it was like when Chara was alive, and a monster-human alliance was a possibility. But it might prevent the less zealous guards from killing the children.

It is better for Asgore to kill them, to bear the stain of their blood alone. It is better for Asgore to be the only murderer, because then his subjects will both be free of the underground and his sins.

* * *

The next child is the worst, but every child has been the worst. This one was different, though. They wore green and smiled when they walked into the throne room, escorted by two royal guards. Asgore had excused them, and the child had made no movement to flee or fight once they were alone.

“You’re trying to save your people,” the child says, cocking their head and looking at Asgore. “It must be horrible, being trapped down here. I… I want to help.”

“How could you help?” Asgore asks, only weariness in his voice. Nobody can help, and the only way the monsters will be free is through bloodshed.

“If I offered you my soul, would you take it?” the child asks, and Asgore blinks in surprise.

“It makes no difference,” he says.

“It does to me,” the child says. Asgore looks in their eyes and sees a desire to help, a warmth he has been missing ever since his wife has left him alone in this palace with nothing but grey walls and echoing memories.

Asgore pours them tea and waits until the child finishes drinking it before he kills them. His own tea sits on the table, untouched and cooling. He pours it out in the garden and wonders, looking at the golden flowers.

_ What kind of king am I, if I grow weary of saving my people?  _ he wonders.  _ What would my people say if they knew that I want the children to stay away, to stop coming? Even if it means our eternal imprisonment, it would be better than this. _

* * *

He hears reports of the sixth child long before he meets him. This child has gone on a rampage, killing monsters left and right, leaving a trail of dust in their wake. Asgore orders his citizens to withdraw to the Core and goes to meet them himself.

Asgore finds the child in Waterfall. The child wears a red bandana around their neck and has a yellow striped shirt. He shoots a bullet at Asgore before a word is spoken, and Asgore easily deflects it.

“This is for the children you’ve killed,” the child says, and the words almost bring Asgore to his knees. Almost.

This child is angry in a way that none of the others were. He wounds Asgore, grazing one of his arms with a bullet and dealing damage. In the end it hardly matters, and the child dies just like all the others.

They fight. The child loses. Asgore finds it hard to say that he won.

Back at the palace he still gives the child the same burial he has given every other child, and delivers the yellow soul into it’s container. He stands and stares at the containers for a moment, watching the souls pulse and glow with their rainbow of colours.  _ One left,  _ he reminds himself, but it is a cold comfort.

He has given up trying to convince himself that it will get easier. Asgore knows that no matter the child that stands before him, no matter if the child fights or forgives, he will always see Chara standing in their place.

* * *

It is a long time until the next child comes.

Alphys has built a robot, a marvelous thing that she promises will be able to kill the last human and save them all. In the meantime the robot entertains the monsters, keeps Asgore’s people happy while they wait.

Asgore enjoys having Alphys in the palace. It’s too large now, too empty. Alphys begins another research project she promises will give them another way out, will allow them to break the barrier without another human soul. It has been a long time since Asgore felt the small stirrings of hope.

When Alphys vanishes for a week he remembers why it’s so dangerous to hope. When she comes back she is far more nervous and doesn’t talk with him as much. Asgore can feel the distance between them and wonders if he’ll lose everybody by the time they’re free.

Perhaps the other humans had been warned away by the last child, the one who had tried to kill them all. Perhaps another child will never fall. Asgore would accept that if it were only him that would pay, but since he does not want his people to be buried as well he still waits.

By the time the last child falls, Asgore’s journal has the same words but they hold a different meaning. He needs to remember that it’s a beautiful day outside, that somewhere the world still holds beauty, that no matter what happens here the horrors cannot infect the entire world.

Asgore smashes the mercy button, because he knows that he has sinned too much to deserve mercy. The world is beautiful somewhere else, and no matter what happens to him he’ll make sure that his people can escape and find it.


End file.
